Memories of Bethany Part 9

Let us bear in mind, also, that every holy service of unostentatious love exercises a hallowed influence on those around us. We may not be conscious of such. But, if Christians indeed, the sphere in which we move will, like the Bethany home, be redolent with the ointment perfume.

A holy life is a silent witness for Jesus--an incense-cloud from the heart-altar, breathing odours and sweet spices, of which the world cannot fail to take knowledge. Yes! were we to seek for a beautiful allegorical representation of pure and undefiled Religion, we would find it in this loveliest of inspired pictures. Mary--all silent and submissive at the feet of her Lord--only permitting her love to be disclosed by the holy perfume which, unknown to herself, revealed to others the reality and intensity of her love. True religion is quiet, un.o.btrusive, seeking the shade--its ever-befitting att.i.tude at the feet of Jesus, looking to Him as all in all. Yet, though retiring, it _must_ and _will_ manifest its living and influential power. The heart broken at the cross, like Mary's broken box, begins from that hour to give forth the hallowed perfume of faith, and love, and obedience, and every kindred grace. Not a fitful and vacillating love and service, but _ever_ emitting the fragrance of holiness, till the little world of home influence around us is filled with the odour of the ointment.

"I ask Thee for the daily strength, To none that ask denied; And a mind to blend with outward life, While keeping by Thy side; Content to fill a little s.p.a.ce If Thou be glorified.

"And if some things I do not ask In my cup of blessings be, I would have my spirit fill'd the more With grateful love to Thee-- More careful not to serve Thee _much_, But to please Thee perfectly."

Such is a brief sketch of this beautiful domestic scene, and its main practical lessons,--a green spot on which the eye will ever love to repose, among the "Memories of Bethany." It is unnecessary to advert to the controverted question, as to whether the description of the anointing, which took place in the house of Simon the leper (as recorded in Matt. xxvi. 6-14, and Mark xiv. 3), and where the alabaster box is spoken of, be identical with this pa.s.sage, or whether they refer to two distinct occasions. The question is of no great importance in itself--the former view (that they are descriptions of one and the same event) seems the more probable. It surely gives a deep intensity to the interest of the narrative to imagine the Leper and the raised dead man, seated at the same table together with their common Deliverer, glorifying their Saviour-G.o.d, with bodies and spirits they felt now to be doubly _His_! Simon, it is evident, must have been cured of his disease, else, by the Jewish law, he dared not have been a.s.sociating with his friends at a common meal. How was he cured? How else may we suppose was that inveterate malady subdued but by the omnipotent word of _Him_, who had only to say,--"I will, be thou made whole!" May we not regard him as a standing miracle of Jesus' power over the diseased body, as Lazarus was the living trophy of His power over death and the grave.

The one could testify,--"This poor man cried, and the Lord saved him, and delivered him out of all his troubles." The other,--"Unless the Lord had been my help, my soul must now have dwelt in silence!"

In order to explain the circ.u.mstance of this family meeting being in the house of _Simon_, there have not been wanting advocates for the supposition, that the restored leper may have been none other than the _parent_ of the household.[25] It is not for us to hazard conjectures, where Scripture has thrown no light. Even when sanctioned by venerated names, the most plausible hypothesis should be received with that caution requisite in dealing with what is supported exclusively by traditional authority. Were, however, such a view as we have indicated correct (which is just possible, and there is nothing in the face of the narrative to render it _improbable_), it certainly would impart a new and fresh beauty to the picture of this Feast of grat.i.tude. Well might the _parent's_ heart swell within him with more than ordinary emotions!

_Himself_ plucked a victim from the most loathsome of diseases! He would think, with tearful eye, of the dark dungeon of his banishment--the lazar-house, where he had been gloomily excluded from all fellows.h.i.+p with human sympathies and loving hearts. His own children condemned by a severe but righteous necessity to shun his presence--or when within sound of human footfall or human voice, compelled to make known his presence with the doleful utterance,--"Unclean! Unclean!" He would think of that wondrous moment in his history, when, shunned by _man_, the G.o.d-MAN drew near to him, and with one glance of His love, and one utterance of His power, He bade the foul disease for ever away!

Nor was this all that Simon (if he _were_, indeed, the father of the family) must have felt. What must have been those emotions, too deep for utterance, as he gazed on the son of his affections, seated once more by his side! A short time ago, Lazarus had been laid silent in the adjoining sepulchre--Death had laid his cold hand upon him--the pride of his home had been swept down. But the same Almighty friend who had caused his own leprosy to depart, had given him back his lost one. They were rejoicing together in the presence of Him to whom they owed life and all its blessings. Oh, well might "the voice of rejoicing and salvation be heard in the tabernacles of these righteous!" Well might the head of the household dictate to Mary to "bring forth their best"

and bestow it on their Deliverer--the costliest gift which the dwelling contained--the prized and valued box of alabaster, and pour its contents on His feet! We can imagine the burden, if not the words, of their joint anthem of praise,--"Bless the Lord, O our souls, and forget not all his benefits, who forgiveth all our iniquities, who healeth all our diseases, who redeemeth our lives from destruction, and crowneth us with loving-kindness and with tender mercy."

But be all this as it may, that same great Physician of Souls still waits to be gracious. He healeth ALL our diseases. Young and old, rich and poor, every type of spiritual malady has in Him and His salvation its corresponding cure. The same Lord is rich to all that call upon Him.

The ardent Martha, the contemplative Mary, the aged Simon, Lazarus the loving and beloved--He has proved friend, and help, and Saviour to _all_; and in their several ways they seek to give expression to the depth of their grat.i.tude. Happy home! may there be many such amongst us!

Fathers, brothers, sisters, "loving one another with a pure heart fervently," and loving Jesus more than all--and themselves in Jesus!

Seeking to have _Him_ as the ever-welcomed guest of their dwelling--feeling that all they _have_, and all they _are_, for time or for eternity, they owe to _Him_ who has "brought them out of the horrible pit, and out of the miry clay, and set their feet upon a rock, and established their goings, and put a new song in their mouth, even praise unto our G.o.d!"

Yes! having the Lord, we have what is better and more enduring than the best of earthly ties and earthly homes. This must have been impressed with peculiar force on aged John, as in distant Ephesus he penned the memories of this evening feast. Where were _then_ all its guests?--the recovered leper, the risen Lazarus, the devout sisters, the ardent disciples--all _gone_!--none but himself remained to tell the touching story. _Nay_, _not_ all!--ONE remained amid this wreck of buried friends.h.i.+p--the adorable Being who had given to that Bethany feast all its imperishable interest was still within him and about him. The rocky sh.o.r.es of Patmos, and the groves around Ephesus, echoed to the well-remembered tones of the same voice of love. His _best Friend_ was still left to take loneliness from his solitude. He writes as if he were still reclining on that sacred bosom--"Truly our fellows.h.i.+p is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ!"

Reader! take "that same Jesus" now as your Friend--receive Him as the guest of your soul; and when other guests and other friends.h.i.+ps are vanished and gone, and you may be left like John, as the alone survivor of a buried generation;--"alone! you will yet be _not_ alone!"--lifting your furrowed brow and tearful eye to Heaven, you may exclaim, "Who shall separate me from the love of Christ?"

XVIII.

PALM BRANCHES.

We have just been contemplating a beautiful episode in the Bethany Memories--a gleam amid gathering clouds. _Martha_, _Mary_, and _Lazarus_! With what happy hearts did they hail the presence of their Lord on the evening of that Jewish Sabbath! Little did they antic.i.p.ate the events impending. Little did they dream that their Almighty Deliverer and Friend would that day week be sleeping in His own grave!

These were indeed eventful hours on which they had now entered. The stir through Palestine of the thousands congregating in the earthly Jerusalem to the great Paschal Feast, was but a feeble type of the profound interest with which myriad angel-wors.h.i.+ppers in the Jerusalem above were gathering to witness the offering of the True Paschal Sacrifice, "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world."

On the morning after the supper at Bethany (probably that of our Sabbath), the Saviour rose from His couch of needed rest to approach Jerusalem. The reserve hitherto maintained as to His kingly power is now to be set aside. "The hour is come in which the Son of man is to be glorified." BETHANY is one of the few places a.s.sociated with recollections of the Redeemer's royalty. The "despised and rejected" is, for once, the honoured and exalted. It is a glimpse of the crown before He ascends the cross; a foreshadowing of that blessed period when He shall be hailed by the loud acclaim of earth's nations--the Gentile hosannah mingling with the Hebrew hallelujah in welcoming Him to the throne of universal empire.

Mult.i.tudes of the a.s.sembled pilgrims in the city, who had heard of His arrival, crowded out to Bethany to witness the mysterious Being, whose deeds of mercy and miracle had now become the universal theme of converse. His mightiest prodigy of power in the resurrection of Lazarus had invested His name and person with surpa.s.sing interest. We need not wonder, therefore, that "the town of Mary and her sister Martha" should attract many wors.h.i.+ppers from Jerusalem, to behold with their own eyes at once the restored villager and his Divine Deliverer! In fulfilment of Zechariah's prophecy, the meek and lowly Nazarene, seated on no caparisoned war-horse, but on an unbroken colt, and surrounded with the mult.i.tude, sets forth on His journey.[26] "The village and the desert were then all alive (as they still are once every year at the Greek Easter) with the crowd of Paschal pilgrims moving to and fro between Bethany and Jerusalem. ... Three pathways lead, and probably always led, from Bethany; ... one a long circuit over the northern shoulder of Mount Olivet, down the valley which parts it from Scopus; another, a steep footpath over the summit; the third, the natural continuation of the road by which mounted travellers always approach the city from Jericho, over the southern shoulder between the summit which contains the Tombs of the Prophets, and that called the 'Mount of Offence.' There can be no doubt that this last is the road of the entry of Christ, not only because, as just stated, it is, and must always have been, the usual approach for hors.e.m.e.n and for large caravans such as then were concerned, but also because this is the only one of the three approaches which meets the requirements of the narrative which follows. ... This is the only one approach which is really grand. It is the approach by which the army of Pompey advanced, the first European army that ever confronted it. Probably the first impression of every one coming from the north-west and the south may be summed up in the simple expression used by one of the modern travellers--'I am strangely affected, but greatly disappointed!' But no human being could be disappointed who first saw Jerusalem from the east. The beauty consists in this, that you then burst at once on the two great ravines which cut the city off from the surrounding table-land.

"Two vast streams of people met on that day. The one poured out from the city, and as they came through the gardens whose cl.u.s.ters of palms rose on the south-eastern corner of Olivet, they cut down the long branches, as was their wont at the Feast of Tabernacles, and moved upwards towards Bethany with loud shouts of welcome. From Bethany streamed forth the crowds who had a.s.sembled there on the previous night, and who came testifying to the great event at the sepulchre of Lazarus. The road soon loses sight of Bethany. It is now a rough, but still broad and well-defined mountain track, winding over rock and loose stones,--a steep declivity below on the left; the sloping shoulder of Olivet above on the right. Along this road the mult.i.tudes threw down the branches which they cut as they went along, or spread out a rude matting formed of the palm branches they had already cut as they came out. The larger portion (those perhaps who escorted Him from Bethany) unwrapped their loose cloaks from their shoulders, and stretched them along the rough path, to form a momentary carpet as he approached. The two streams met midway. Half of the vast ma.s.s, turning round, preceded; the other half followed. Gradually the long procession swept up and over the ridge, where first begins the 'descent of the Mount of Olives,' towards Jerusalem. At this point the first view is caught of the south-eastern corner of the city. The Temple and the more northern portions are hid by the slope of Olivet on the right; what is seen is only Mount Zion, covered with houses to its base, surmounted by the castle of Herod on the supposed site of the palace of David, from which that portion of Jerusalem, emphatically 'The City of David,' derived its name. It was at this precise point, as he drew near, at the descent of the Mount of Olives, (may it not have been from the sight thus opening upon them?) that the shout of triumph burst forth from the mult.i.tude--'Hosannah to the Son of David! Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord!

Blessed is the kingdom that cometh of our father David.

Hosannah--Peace--Glory in the highest!' There was a pause as the shout rang through the long defile; and as the Pharisees who stood by in the crowd complained, He pointed to the 'stones,' which, strewn beneath their feet, would immediately 'cry out' if 'these were to hold their peace.' Again the procession advanced. The road descends a slight declivity, and the glimpse of the city is again withdrawn behind the intervening ridge of Olivet. A few moments, and the path mounts again, it climbs a rugged ascent, it reaches a ledge of smooth rock, and in an instant the whole city bursts into view. As now the dome of the Mosque El Aksa rises like a ghost from the earth before the traveller stands on the ledge, so then must have risen the Temple Tower; as now the vast enclosure of the Mussulman Sanctuary, so then must have spread the Temple Courts; as now the gray town on its broken hills, so then the magnificent city with its background (long since vanished away) of gardens and suburbs on the western plateau behind. Immediately below was the valley of the Kedron, here seen in its greatest depth, as it joins the valley of Hinnom; and thus giving full effect to the great peculiarity of Jerusalem, seen only on its eastern side--its situation as of a city rising out of a deep abyss. It is hardly possible to doubt that this rise and turn of the road (this rocky ledge) was the exact point where the mult.i.tude paused again, and 'He, when He beheld the city, wept over it.' ... Here the Lord stayed His onward march, and here His eyes beheld what is still the most impressive view which the neighbourhood of Jerusalem furnishes--and the tears rushed forth at the sight."[27]

Without dwelling longer on this splendid ovation, we may only further remark, that had the Redeemer's mission been on (the infidel theory) a successful imposture, what an opportunity now to have availed Himself of that outburst of popular fervour, and to have marched straight to take possession of the hereditary throne of David. The populace were evidently more than ready to second any such attempt; the Sanhedrim and Jewish authorities must have trembled for the result. The hosannas, borne on the breeze from the slope of Olivet, could not fail to sound ominous of coming disaster. So incontrovertible indeed had been the proof of Lazarus' resurrection, that only the most blinded bigotry could refuse to own in that marvellous act the divinity of Jesus. In addition, too, to this last crowning demonstration of omnipotence, there were hundreds, we may well believe, in that procession, who, in different parts of Palestine, had listened to His gracious words, and witnessed His gracious deeds. What _other_, what _better_ Messiah could they wish than this--combining the might of G.o.dhead with the kindness and tenderness of a human philanthropist and friend? Is He to accept of the crown? Nay, by a lofty abnegation of self, and all selfish considerations, He ill.u.s.trates the announcement made by Him, a few hours later, in Pilate's judgment-hall, as to the leading characteristic of that empire He is to set up in the hearts of men--"My kingdom is not of this world." He was, indeed, one day to be hailed alike King of Zion and King of Nations, but a bitter baptism of blood and suffering had meanwhile to be undergone. No glitter of earthly honour--no carnal dreams of earthly glory--would divert Him from His divine and gracious undertaking. He would save _others_--Himself He _would_ not save.

Let us pause for a moment, and ponder that significant chorus of praise which on Olivet arose to the Lord of Glory. How interesting to think of the vast and varied mult.i.tude gathered around the Conqueror! Many, doubtless, a.s.sembled from curiosity, who had never seen Him before, and had only heard of His fame in their distant homes; others, from feelings of personal love and grat.i.tude, were blending their voices in the shout of welcome. Think, it may be, of Bartimeus, now gazing with his unsealed eyes on his Divine Deliverer. Think of Mary Magdalene, her heart gus.h.i.+ng at the remembrance of her own sin and shame, and her adorable Redeemer's pardoning and forgiving mercy! Nicodemus, perhaps, no longer seeking to repair by stealth, under the shadow of night, to hold a confidential meeting; but in the full blaze of day, and before a.s.sembled Israel, boldly recognising in "the Teacher sent from G.o.d" the promised Messiah, the Prince of Peace, the Redeemer of Mankind. Shall we think of Lazarus too, fearless of his own personal safety, venturing to follow his guest with tearful eye, the mult.i.tude gazing with wonder on this living trophy of death? We may think of the very children, as He entered the temple, uplifting their infant voices in the general welcome--pledges of the myriad little ones who, in future ages, were to have an interest in "the kingdom of G.o.d."

"Meanwhile He paces through th' adoring crowd, Calm as the march of some majestic cloud That o'er wild scenes of ocean war Holds its still course in Heaven afar.

"Yet in the throng of selfish hearts untrue, His sad eye rests upon His faithful few; Children and child-like souls are there, Blind Bartimeus' humble prayer; And Lazarus, waken'd from his four days' sleep, Enduring life again that Pa.s.sover to keep."[28]

May not Olivet be regarded on this occasion as a type of the Church triumphant in Heaven--Jesus enthroned in the affections of a mighty mult.i.tude which no man can number--old and young, great and small, rich and poor--casting their palms of victory at His feet, and ascribing to Him all the glory of their great salvation?

Let _us_ ask, have _we_ received Jesus as _our_ King?--have _our_ palm branches been cast at His feet? Feeling that He is alike willing and mighty to save, have we joined in the rapture of praise--"Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord to save us?" Have our hearts become living temples thrown open for His reception? Is this the motto and superscription on their portals--"This is the gate of the Lord, into which THE RIGHTEOUS ONE shall enter!" Jesus refused and disowned none of these gratulations--He spurned no voice in all that motley Jerusalem throng. There were endless diversities and phases, doubtless, of human character and history there. The once proud formalist, the once greedy extortioner, the hated tax-gatherer, the rich n.o.bleman, the child of penury, the Roman officer, the peasant or fisherman of Galilee, the humbled publican, the woman from the city, the reclaimed victim of misery and guilt! All were there as types and samples of that diversified mult.i.tude who, in every age, were to own Him as King, and receive His gracious benediction.

We have spoken of this incident as a glimpse of glory before His sufferings. Alas! it _was_ but a glimpse. What a picture of the fickleness and treachery of the heart!--That excited populace who are now shouting their hosannahs, are ere long to be raising the cry, "Crucify Him, crucify Him!" Four days hence we shall find the palm branches lying withered on the Bethany road, and the blazing torches of an a.s.sa.s.sin-band nigh the very spot where He is now pa.s.sing with an applauding retinue! "Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils."

It does not belong to our narrative to record the remaining transactions of this day in Jerusalem. The shades of evening find the Saviour once more repairing to Bethany. The evangelist _Mark_, in the course of his narrative, simply but touchingly says:--"And Jesus entered into Jerusalem, and into the temple, and when He had looked round about upon all things" (the mitred priests, the bleeding victims, the costly buildings), "and now the eventide was come, he went out unto BETHANY with the twelve." (Mark xi. 11.) As He returned to the sweet calm of that quiet home, if He could not fail to think of the hours of darkness and agony before Him, could He reap no joy or consolation in the thought, that that very day week the redemption of His people was to be consummated--the glory that surrounded the grave and resurrection of Lazarus was to be eclipsed by the marvels of His own!

XIX.

THE FIG-TREE.

The hosannahs of yesterday had died away--the memorials of its triumph were strewed on the road across Olivet--as, early on the Monday morning, while the sun was just appearing above the Mountains of Moab, the Divine Redeemer left His Bethany retreat, and was seen retraversing the well-worn path to Jerusalem. Here and there, in the "olive-bordered way," were Fig plantations. The adjoining village of Bethphage derived its name from the Green Fig.[29] Indeed, "fig-trees may still be seen overhanging the ordinary road from Jerusalem to Bethany, growing out of the rocks of the solid mountain, which, by the prayer of faith, might 'be removed and cast into the (distant Mediterranean) Sea.'"[30] An incident connected with one of these is too intimately identified with the Redeemer's last journeys to and from the home of His friend to admit of exclusion from our "Bethany Memories." These memories have hitherto, for the most part, in connexion at least with our blessed Lord, been soothing, hallowed, encouraging. Here the "still small voice" is for once broken with sterner accents. In contrast with the bright background of other sunny pictures, we have, standing out in bold relief, a withered, sapless stem, impressively proclaiming, in unwonted utterances of wrath and rebuke, that the same hand is "strong to smite," which we have witnessed so lately in the case of Lazarus was "strong to save."

The eye of Jesus, as he traversed the rocky path with His disciples, rested on a _Fig-tree_. (Mark xi. 12, 13.) It seems not to have been growing alone, but formed part of a group or plantation on one of the slopes or ravines of Olivet. Its appearance could not fail to challenge attention. It was now only the Pa.s.sover season (the month of April); summer--the time for ripe figs--was yet distant; and as it is one of the peculiarities of the tree that the fruit appears _before_ the leaves, a considerable period, in the ordinary course of nature, ought to have elapsed before the foliage was matured. Jesus Himself, it will be remembered, on another occasion, spake of the putting forth of the fig-tree leaves as an indication that "_summer_ was nigh." It must have been, therefore, a strange and unusual sight which met the eye of the travellers as they gazed, in early spring, on one of these trees with its full complement of leaves--clad in full summer luxuriance. While the others in the plantation, true to the order of development, were yet bare and leafless, or else the buds of spring only flus.h.i.+ng them with verdure, the broad leaves of this precocious (and we may think at first _favoured_) plant--the pioneer of surrounding vegetation--rustled in the morning breeze, and invited the pa.s.sers-by to turn aside, examine the marvel, and pluck the fruit.

We may confidently infer that Jesus, as the Omniscient Lord of the inanimate creation, knew well that fruit there was none under that pretentious foliage. We dare not suppose that He went expecting to find Figs; far less, that in a moment of disappointed hope, He ventured on a capricious exercise of His power, uttered a hasty malediction, and condemned the insensate boughs to barrenness and decay. The first cursory reading of the narrative may suggest some such unworthy impression. But we dismiss it at once, as strangely at variance with the Saviour's character, and strangely unlike His wonted actings. We feel a.s.sured that He literally, as well as figuratively, would not "break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax." He came, in all respects, "not to destroy, but to save." Some deep inner meaning, not apparent on the surface of the inspired story, must have led Him for the moment to regard a tree in the light of a responsible agent, and to address it in words of unusual severity.

What, then, is the explanation? Our Lord on this occasion revives the old typical or picture-teaching with which the Hebrews were to that hour so familiar. He, as the greatest of prophets, adopts the significant and impressive method, not unfrequently employed by the Seers of Israel, who, in uttering startling and solemn truths, did so by means of _symbolic actions_. As Jeremiah of old dashed the potter's vessel down the Valley of Hinnom, to indicate the judgments that were about to befall Jerusalem; or, at another time, wore around his own neck a wooden yoke, to intimate their approaching bondage under the King of Babylon; or, as Isaiah "walked naked and barefoot three years for a sign and wonder upon Egypt and Ethiopia," so did our Lord now invest a tree in dumb nature with a prophet's warning voice, and make its stripped and blighted boughs eloquent of a nation's doom!

On the height of their own Olivet, looking down, as it were, on Jerusalem, that fig-tree becomes a stern messenger of woe and vengeance to the whole house of Judah. Often before had he warned by His _words_ and _tears_; now He is to make an insignificant object in the outer world take up His prophecy, and testify to the degenerate people at once the cause, the suddenness, and the certainty of their destruction! Let us join, then, the Master and His disciples, as they stand on the crest above Bethany, and, gazing on that fruitless leaf-bearer, "hear this parable of the fig-tree."[31]

Jesus, on approaching it (it seemed to be at a little distance from their path), and finding abundance of leaves, but no fruit thereon, condemns it to perpetual sterility and barrenness.

A difficulty here occurs on the threshold of the narrative. If, as we have noted, and as St Mark tells us, "the time of figs was _not yet_"--why this seeming impatience--why this harsh sentence for not having what, _if found_, would have been unseasonable, untimely, abnormal?

In this apparent difficulty lies the main truth and zest of the parable.

The doom of sterility, be it carefully noted, was uttered by Jesus, not so much because of the _absence of fruit_, but because the tree, by its premature display of leaves, challenged expectations which a closer inspection did not realise. "It was punished," says an able writer, "not for being without fruit, but for proclaiming, by the voice of those leaves, that it had such. Not for being barren, but for being false."[32]

Graphic picture of boastful and vaunting Israel! This conspicuous tree, nigh one of the frequented paths of Olivet, was no inappropriate type, surely, of that nation which stood ill.u.s.trious amid the world's kingdoms--exalted to heaven with unexampled privileges which it abused--proudly claiming a righteousness which, when weighed in the balances, was found utterly wanting. It mattered not that the heathen nations were as guilty, vile, and corrupt as the chosen people.

Fig-trees were they, too--naked stems, fruitless and leafless; but then they made no boastful pretensions. The Jews had, in the face of the world, been glorying in a righteousness which, in reality, was only like the foliage of that tree by which the Lord and His disciples now stood--mocking the expectations of its owner by mere outward semblance and an utter absence of fruit.

The very day preceding, these mournful deficiencies had brought tears to the Saviour's eyes--stirred the depths of His yearning heart in the very hour of His triumph. He had looked down from the height of the mountain on the gilded splendours of the Temple Courts beneath; but, alas! He saw that sanctimonious hypocrisy and self-righteous formalism had sheltered themselves behind clouds of incense. Mammon, covetousness, oppression, fraud, were rising like strange fire from these defiled altars!

He turns the tears of yesterday into an expressive and enduring parable to-day! He approaches a luxuriant Fig-tree, boasting great things among its fellows, and thus through _it_ He addresses a doomed city and devoted land,--"O House of Israel," He seems to say, "I have come up for the last time to your highest and most ancient festival. You stand forth in the midst of the nations of the earth clothed in rich verdure. You retain intact the splendour of your ancestral ritual. You boast of your rigid adherence to its outward ceremonial, the punctilious observance of your fasts and feasts. But I have found that it is but 'a name to live.'

You sinfully ignore 'the weightier matters of the law, judgment, justice, and mercy!' You call out as you tread that gorgeous fane--'The Temple of the Lord! The Temple of the Lord! The Temple of the Lord are we!' You forget that your hearts are the Temple I prize! Holiness, the most acceptable incense--love to G.o.d, and love to man, the most pleasing sacrifice. All that dead and torpid formalism--that mockery of outward foliage--is to me nothing. 'Your new moons and Sabbaths--the calling of a.s.semblies--I cannot away with; it is iniquity even the solemn meeting.'

These are only as the whitewash of your sepulchres to hide the loathsomeness within--'the rottenness and dead men's bones!' If you had made no impious pretensions, I would not, peradventure, have dealt so sternly with you. If like the other trees you had confessed your nakedness, and stood with your leafless stems, waiting for summer suns, and dews, and rains, to fructify you, and to bring your fruit to perfection--all well; but you have sought to mock and deceive me by your falsity, and thus precipitated the doom of the c.u.mberer. 'Henceforth, let no man eat fruit of thee for ever!'"

The unconscious Tree listened! One night only pa.s.sed, and the morrow found it with drooping leaf and blighted stem! On yonder mountain crest it stood, as a sign between heaven and earth of impending judgment.